was that deal good for poor people? >> for 30 years, we have not addressed this issue, except for the wonderful work that you and cornel are doing in these wonderful people on the panel. politics has neglected the poor. one could say that there was a war on the poor rather than a war on poverty for much of this period. the united states has by far the most poverty of any of the high- income countries as a share of the population. we have the highest in quality. we have the most entrenched underclass. we have had the biggest increases of any quality by far, and we've had the least political response of any high- income countries, so we are standing out on our own. this has been a 30-year trend of soaring in comes at the top, stagnation in the middle, and falling through the floor on the bottom, and the political system has refused to address this for 30 years. so we have reached a calamitous situation in this country, but the fact of the matter is nothing that was done at the fiscal cliff and what lies ahead most likely